Under the law Judge Callahan struck down, written with the thinly veiled intent to keep the current Publicans in power by cleansing the rolls of Democratic voters, Missouri will send US Representative Ike Skelton back to Washington for the bazillionth time, but the state wouldn’t count his vote because he was denied a photo ID by the state Department of Revenue!
Even in the annals of Missouri politics, this law was the most partisan piece of trash ever to move through the system and be signed by a governor. And I would say that even if it wasn’t my party’s ox getting gored.
I grew up in a bipartisan atmosphere. My maternal grandparents were both extremely active in politics. At various times throughout my childhood, Grandpa was the leader of the county’s Republicans (before they lost their minds and the “Re”) and Grandma was the chair of the county Democrats.
When I was a kid, in the 70’s, it was still common for a whole lot of kids to get shipped off to the family farm for a while each summer. My grandparents had fifteen grandkids spread over a seven year span, and every summer, about the time the hay was ready to be put up and Grandma was about to start canning, we would all descend on them like a chain-gang of juvenile offenders, dispatched to the work farm. We were the first generation of city kids, and the tradition died with our grandparents. Our parents, who sent their children to the farm, were not on the farm to receive their own grandkids. But I got shipped from Wales, Japan, Hawaii and the Philippines all the way to rural Missouri for a month every summer when I was a kid.
Ah memories – indulge me for a moment while I take a stroll down memory lane…
“Grandpa it’s 5:30! Why do I have to pick up hay this early?” only passed a child’s lips once, because he always answered the same way: “Because you don’t want to be picking up 80-pound bales at 3:30.” We never asked again, because we knew he was right, and he brooked no foolishness. We were afraid that if we did ask a second time, we would be an example – out in the sun loading a wagon by ourselves under a blazing afternoon sun; while the cousins and siblings were “fishing” (that was our shorthand for smoking pot) on one side of the pond and swimming on the other.
But we were more than a labor source on the family farm by day…we were a clan of election workers in the evening. We manned registration tents at county fairs. We were sent out among the masses with clipboards. We distributed fliers for candidates, county meetings and ballot initiatives. In 1972, we knocked on doors for Kit Bond with our grandfather, and then turned around a couple of days later and knocked on those very same doors for Jerry Litton. Both won their elections, telling me at a tender age that either my grandparents were extremely effective campaigners, or more likely, Missourians as a rule are pretty fair-minded and egalitarian in their voting habits, until they get infected by some water-borne pathogen that only strikes in limited areas of the nation, notably along the Gasconade and Potomac rivers. (Outbreaks are epidemic in Jefferson City, MO and Washington D.C.)
I do have a personal litmus test for voting, a test that has served me well and one I will never abandon. My litmus test is quite simple: Before I cast a vote I always ask myself if one of my grandparents would vote for that candidate. If the answer is “no” then that candidate does not get my vote; party affiliation and loyalty be damned. If I have to cross the ballot to get a “yes” then I cross the ballot. I have to have lunch with myself later in the day, and I just couldn’t stand to break bread with a person who didn’t vote their conscience. Based on that litmus test, I have not cast a ballot for any Republican since 1992, the last time I voted for Bob Dole to represent me in the Senate. (I know I know. I'll turn in my liberal credentials on my way out.)
I will forever be convinced that the “Contract with America” hastened my grandfather’s death. He died three days after the "Power Rangers" appeared on the House floor with Newt Gingrich. The last ballot my died-in-the-wool Republican grandfather cast was in November 1994. He voted a straight Democratic ticket. My grandfather never placed a long-distance call unless it was party business or a matter of life-and-death. And he never stayed up past 9:00 p.m., unless there was an important baseball or football game on television. But that night I got a call from him at 10:30, five minutes after I got home from Dan Glickman’s campaign headquarters, stinging with defeat.
I am the most political of all of the 16 politically savvy grandkids (my mother added one more at age 42, after my father died and she remarried) and both grandparents beamed at that accomplishment. I called him every time I voted for a Republican. He returned the courtesy that day. My grandfather’s defection was a bellwether moment for me. It was also the last long-distance call he made in his lifetime.
So when the Missouri Voter ID law was still in the lege, a law which does not affect me in any way – we are all licensed drivers, and three members of my immediate family have ID’s issued by the US military. My right to vote was never in jeopardy.
My personal ox wasn’t gored, in other words. I did not oppose the law because it disenfranchised Democratic voters. I opposed it because it disenfranchised Missourians. I opposed it because it disenfranchised Americans. I opposed it because it disenfranchised both constitutions. I opposed it because both of my grandparents would have opposed it; and once you have been raised right, there is no undoing the process.
There is great wailing, beating of breasts and gnashing of teeth going on right now in Missouri Republican circles.
To which I say, “suck it up.”
The Kansas City Star reports on the front page Friday that the fallout from Judge Callahan’s decision is breaking down along party lines, which is to be expected of such a partisan piece of legislation. And the Publicans in Jefferson City, the town common sense forgot and common decency never knew, were quick to accuse Jay Nixon, our Democratic Attorney General and a candidate for Governor in 2008 of failing to properly defend the legislation. Totally absurd (but that never stopped any Missouri Publican from setting up a howl if it served ‘em politically) since the Publican Party sent interveners to help the Attorney General defend the legislation in court and to assure that the “lackluster defense” they accuse Nixon of mounting didn’t happen.
Matt Blunt was indignant. “I am disappointed in Judge Callahan’s ruling and encourage the defendant to appeal. This is a constitutionally sound law and will help improve Missourians’ confidence in the elections process and help combat those who attempt to manipulate the system.” Gov. Blunt insisted.
Matty, Matty Matty. The bill is absolutely not constitutional. It is unconstitutional because it has at its core a poll tax in the form of an unfounded mandate. If you don’t drive and only write checks that you mail, a sizeable population in the inner city, then the voter was disenfranchised. MoDoR failed to issue state ID’s to over 136,000 people who attempted to obtain them because the citizen showed up to get their new ID’s without their passport or birth certificate. Those who were denied ID are the very people poll taxes disenfranchised in the days of Jim Crow. And Missouri has an ugly history where race relations are concerned. (Wilt Chamberlain couldn’t get lunch at Kansas City’s venerable Nichol’s Lunch and almost didn’t go to KU because of it.)
And by the way, Matty, the more (eligible) people who vote, the more confidence this citizen has in the integrity of the electoral process. More voters, not less, guarantee fairness of the electoral process. As for his “manipulate the system” comment – I’m non-plussed that he would even try to put lipstick on that pig. They say that the ultimate example of chutzpah is the man who kills his parents then claims the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. If Matty was a member of my tribe, we would have a rival definition.
Since I have already mixed metaphors all over the place, and since I am writing this on “Red Friday” and since I live in the Westport party zone, let me put it this way:
The R’s had the ball and they called a risky play - an end-run around not just one, but two constitutions. The spectators in the stands were on their feet immediately. There were flags all over the play. The Umpire called the penalty. They can burn a time-out and go to the instant replay if they want, but the call is going to stand.
Yes, Missouri’s Democrats are indeed rejoicing, but not at the defeat of the Publican’s bill. We are rejoicing at the victory of common sense and democracy. That, and there is an election coming in a few weeks, and I know of 136,000 votes that should be guaranteed for the states Democrats, after the Publican effort to take it away nearly worked.
Yes, Missouri’s Democrats are indeed rejoicing, but not at the defeat of the Publican’s bill. We are rejoicing at the victory of common sense and democracy. That, and there is an election coming in a few weeks, and I know of 136,000 votes that should be guaranteed for the states Democrats, after the Publican effort to take it away nearly worked.
